“Voice of the People, lately polled,
Awed by our broad-cast battle scheme,
By virtue of whose vote we hold
Our licence still to doze and dream,
Still, falt’ring Voice, complaisant shout,
Lest we go out, lest we go out.”
Alice looked anxiously at the Queens when she had finished, but they were both fast asleep.
“It will take a deal of shouting to rouse them,” she thought.
ALICE IN DIFFICULTIES
“How are you getting on?” asked the Cheshire Cat.
“I’m not,” said Alice.
Which was certainly the truth.
It was the most provoking and bewildering game of croquet she had ever played in. The other side did not seem to know what they were expected to do, and, for the most part, they weren’t doing anything, so Alice thought she might have a good chance of winning—though she was ever so many hoops behind. But the ground she had to play over was all lumps and furrows, and some of the hoops were three-cornered in shape, which made them difficult to get through, while as for the balls (which were live hedgehogs and very opinionated), it was all she could do to keep them in position for a minute at a time. Then the flamingo which she was using as a mallet kept stiffening itself into uncompromising attitudes, and had to be coaxed back into a good temper.
“I think I can manage him now,” she said, “since I let him have a latchkey and allowed him to take up the position he wanted he has been quite amiable. The other flamingo I was playing with,” she added regretfully, “strayed off into a furrow. The last I saw of it, it was trying to bore a tunnel.”
